no one ever warned me:

my tongue is a weapon,

scrutinizing an easy kill.

all the words are falling out like baby teeth,

and your name tastes like blood,

coating my tongue as if it was something

so sweet as sugar.

you always leave me shaking,

my bones flickering like an old-timey tv show

and I can’t turn off the tv;

I can’t stop the anxiety that’s so acidic

that my bones could melt into nothing more

than one of the oceans you hold in your fingertips.

nothing more than fragments clatter down my chin,

words unsaid leave bruises,

and my biggest flaw is my desire for perfection so vibrant,

staining my skin an awful color called “please notice me.”

have you ever met a stranger and immediately trusted them,

doing everything but begging them, “hear me; learn me!”?

or maybe you spent that whole bus ride next to them holding your breath

and praying you’d never see them again, paralyzed in fear?

have you ever wondered why? wondered if maybe you knew them in a previous life,

and maybe you’re remembering the feelings they once gave you?

do you believe souls are recycled?

can I try to meet you again in another life

and tell you then, too, that I feel like I’ve known you forever?

soulmates - the word tries to make room for itself in every poem I write,

the unwanted guest who won’t leave.

how can I believe in soulmates when all we are is strangers

who loan each other secrets with expiration dates?

I guess the timing was just never right.

you were such a calming presence, and I live in such chaos,

but you didn’t come along until I began to pray for disorder

so that I wouldn’t feel so alone in my madness.

maybe all I ever felt between us was our matching anxieties,

how they were bigger than us,

bigger than the world,

through the roof and resting with the stars.

and then there were the words that only occurred when you were here,

when you were real,

and I molded them to look like you,

taught them to spell out your name without using a single letter of it

so that you’d remain long after you left.

and now I can’t figure out how to explain when people ask about you

that you left because it was easier than staying,

because you only ever loved my laugh

because it’s what created the sound of the scribble of your pen,

that you left the first time you heard her laugh because hers is less raw,

and my achy bones caused yours to break.

do you remember the night we went to the park

with only the moon and stars as our source of light

and you looked blindly in my direction and said,

“the moon causes a slightly different feeling than the stars”?

every time I think of that,

I try to share that information,

but it always comes out,

“I once fell in love with someone who had the planets aligned at their feet

but decided it wasn’t enough,

so now they reside in that constellation right there,”

and I always point,

but all they hear coming from my mouth is static.

did you know the sound of static is created by the stars?